Roast chicken. A very popular British Sunday lunch.

In the United Kingdom, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland a popular tradition is to cook a Sunday roast. It is a meal that is normally served for lunch on Sunday afternoon and it consists of roasted meat, normally either chicken, pork, beef or lamb, with roasted potatoes, boiled vegetables and a sauce, called gravy.

It is similar to the Christmas dinner that is normally served in these countries. It is quite a difficult meal to prepare properly because most of the components have different cooking times or temperatures. Roast potatoes, for example, need to be cooked on a high heat in the oven and most meat is best cooked on a lower heat.

There are certain accompaniments that go well with certain meats. Yorkshire puddings, a type of light bread, are traditionally served with roast beef. Apple sauce often goes with roast pork. Mint sauce is a favourite side dish for roast lamb. And, “pigs in blankets” are usually served with roast chicken. “Pigs in blankets” are pork sausages wrapped in bacon.

The typical sauce, gravy, is made from the juices that come out of the meat during cooking and it is normally thickened with a roux (a mixture of flour and butter), or with corn flour.

Many other side dishes can be served with a Sunday roast. My personal favourites are roasted parsnips, roasted onions, roasted or boiled carrots, cooked leeks mixed with a little bit of cream, and some steamed green vegetables such as broccoli or kale.

It’s a delicious meal and it’s a great way to get family or friends to spend a Sunday afternoon together.

Pouring the juices from the chicken into the gravy

Lakes, forests and mountains: the beautiful Canadian scenery

Canada is an English and French speaking country so it could be a possible holiday destination for people learning English or French and wishing to practice their skills. There are lots of amazing things to do in Canada. The scenery in the countryside is absolutely mind blowing, in the winter you can enjoy all kinds of snow sports and in the summer the trekking, walking, mountain biking and nature spotting is great fun, but you have to be careful. When I was camping in Canada I was warned about bears, cougars, wolves and wolverines. You have to know how to behave in order to avoid a confrontation with a dangerous animal, and it was quite scary to think that there were very powerful animals in the woods around me. If you are camping in England you might see a hedgehog, fox or badger, but none of them will attack you!

Apart from the beautiful scenery and extreme sports adventures available in Canada there is a fantastic gastronomic tradition. The steak in Canada is some of the best in the world, and I have never seen lobster as big and delicious as the ones I saw in Canada. Lobsters are thought of as quite posh food nowadays, but it wasn’t always that way. Just 200 years ago they were really cheap and were not served in expensive restaurants. But popular tastes change over the years and now they are incredibly sought after and are fairly expensive, especially if you are not in a coastal town or city.

Drinks in Canada are interesting as well. There is a cocktail that I have only tasted in Canada which sounds a bit disgusting when you hear the ingredients but is, in fact, really nice. It is similar to a Bloody Mary, but instead of using tomato juice, the ingredients are mixed with clamato juice. Clamato juice is a mixture of tomato juice and clams. Yes, that’s right, clams from the sea! The cocktail doesn’t taste fishy but clamato juice is a bit more salty than regular tomato juice and the resulting cocktail is amazing. The cocktail contains clamato juice, vodka, lemon juice, Worcester sauce, chilli sauce, and celery salt and sometimes it is garnished with a pickled vegetable. It is called a Ceaser and it is incredibly refreshing, perfect for a warm summer Canadian afternoon.

Caeser cocktails, made with clamato juice!

Huge, delicious lobsters.

Nelson's Column with one of its protective lions

Trafalgar Square is one of London’s iconic landmarks and in the middle of the square is Nelson’s Column, the monument erected to commemorate Admiral Horatio Nelson’s victory at the battle of Trafalgar (1805). There are four bronze lions that are considered Nelson’s protectors, but why lions? They are not native to Britain. Maybe four protective badgers or four foxes are a better idea.

Lions appear in the cultural iconography of many countries around the world and it’s not because lions live all over the world, they are, of course, only found in Africa and a handful of Asiatic lions exist in the Gir Forest in India.  Any lion found outside of these two places is more than likely in a zoo. Let’s hope it’s in a zoo anyway!

But, because lions represent courage, strength and nobility they have been used symbolically for thousands of years and by many different cultures. There are cave paintings of lions found in the Lascaux Caves in France which are thought to be around 17,000 years old, from a time when lions lived in Europe. A lion is also used on the British Royal Coat of Arms. The king of the beasts as a symbolic icon of the royal family might seem like a good idea but biologists and naturalists are carrying out research that shows that lions often scavenge their food, stealing food from other wild cats, taking food from wild dogs and hyenas, and eating carrion, which is not the most fitting behaviour for the king of the beasts.

Maybe as our understanding of the natural world progresses, our use of natural images in cultural iconography will change, but it takes a long time to study the behaviour and characteristics of wild animals and it takes even longer for cultural icons to be established.

Should the lion really be the lion king?

Love is in the air

Tomorrow, the 14^th of February, is Valentine’s Day. In many countries it is traditional to give presents and cards with poems to your loved one to celebrate. In the UK it is common to give flowers or chocolates to your partner. Many people give red roses to their partners but it is a custom to give either one or twelve red roses. Valentine’s Day is also an opportunity to send a secret card to somebody that you fancy, so that they know that they have a secret admirer, if you are too embarrassed to tell the person who the card is from then you can sign it “Love from your Valentine.”

Some people criticise Valentine’s Day, saying that it has been glamorised by card, chocolate and flower companies. Personally, I think that it’s a shame if you feel pressured into buying something for your partner, especially if you can’t afford it, but it’s possible to make a card and write a poem for almost no cost at all. Here is a very typical poem that can be found in a Valentine’s Day card:

Roses are red, 

Voilets are blue, 

Honey is sweet, 

And so are you.

Do you celebrate Valentine’s Day in your country? What do you plan on doing with your partner? I think I will make a card for my girlfriend and cook a nice meal for her. I think it is nice to show your girlfriend, boyfriend, husband or wife that you love them and care for them. But should we really wait for Valentine’s Day? Maybe we should think about how we can do something everyday to show the important people in our life how much we care for them. What do you think?